Tuesday, 13 April 2021 11:17

Low-cost microfluidic chips from the 3D printer Featured

Using a 3D printer, scientists from the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras have created a new microfluidic system with a bioreactor made from a dental building material that is very inexpensive and also reusable.


As it was said, that the units created in this way cost as little as five dollars each in manufacturing.  A biocompatible type of resin normally used in the dental surgery was utilized for the 3D-printed device. The printed chip is cured by irradiation with UV light and subsequently sterilized before living cells can be added to the wells.

As an example, the scientists have cultured mini "brains" to monitor brain development in real-time over seven days with the help of a connected imaging technique.

The work was published in the journal Biomicrofluidics:
Ikram Khan et al. (2021): A low-cost 3D printed microfluidic bioreactor and imaging chamber for live-organoid imaging featured"; Biomicrofluidics 15, 024105. https://aip.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/5.0041027

Source:
https://picower.mit.edu/news/tiny-brains-grown-3d-printed-bioreactor